Is McCain or Obama Better for Science? Part 2

October 20, 2008

For those of you who weren’t sufficiently entertained by the presidential debates, here’s something you might appreciate more.

OK, back to our featured question: Which presidential candidate would do more to advance science and technological development? In last week’s blog, we examined GOP nominee Sen. John McCain’s positions. This week, we look at those of the Democratic nominee, Sen. Barack Obama. (And while this may stamp me as a media enabler of the political status quo, I’m not going to examine the positions of third-party candidates Ralph Nader and Bob Barr, in part because they haven’t taken any policy positions on science and technology.)

Obama’s campaign Web site has a short section on his science and technology policy positions. In it, he promises to avoid the mistakes of the Bush administration, which, as we noted last week, actively tried to censor government scientists when their research contradicted the president's political positions, and made politically motivated appointments to important scientific advisory committees. Instead, Obama says that

Good policy in Washington depends on sound advice from the nation's scientists and engineers and decision-making based on the needs of all Americans. Obama and Biden will restore the basic principle that government decisions should be based on the best-available, scientifically-valid evidence and not on the ideological predispositions of agency officials or political appointees.

In a questionnaire that Obama filled out for Science Debate 08, a joint project of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and other organizations, he elaborates on that point:

More broadly, I am committed to creating a transparent and connected democracy, using cutting-edge technologies to provide a new level of transparency, accountability, and participation for America’s citizens. Policies must be determined using a process that builds on the long tradition of open debate that has characterized progress in science, including review by individuals who might bring new information or contrasting views. I have already established an impressive team of science advisors, including several Nobel Laureates, who are helping me to shape a robust science agenda for my administration.

He’s not just blowing smoke on that. When asked by Wired News, Obama’s campaign offered a list of five of his key science advisers. They include Harold Varmus, a Nobel laureate and former head of the National Institutes of Health; former AAAS president Gilbert Omenn; molecular biologist and Nobel laureate Peter Agre, who famously accused the Bush administration of playing “Russian Roulette” by repudiating the Kyoto accord on climate change; University of Chicago astrophysicist Donald Lamb; and Stanford University plant biologist Sharon Long.  (McCain’s campaign, it should be mentioned, declined to reveal the candidate’s science advisers.)

As president, Obama also would issue an executive order establishing clear guidelines for the review and release of government scientific publications, to ensure that political appointees don’t tamper with or suppress research findings that they don’t like.

There’s a stark contrast between the two candidates when it comes to funding scientific research. Would-be budget-cutter McCain, as we noted last week, has made a point of criticizing some government-funded research programs — in particular, a genetic study of grizzlies done to help protect the species — as a waste of money. Obama, in contrast, actually wants to double funding for basic research over the next decade. In the Science Debate 08 questionnaire, Obama notes that federal science agencies are only able to fund one in 10 projects that cross their desks, and that the present shortage of research money is stunting the development of young scientific talent, in addition to delaying advances that could help solve major problems that are confronting us. He writes:

Federally supported basic research, aimed at understanding many features of nature — from the size of the universe to subatomic particles, from the chemical reactions that support a living cell to interactions that sustain ecosystems — has been an essential feature of American life for over fifty years. While the outcomes of specific projects are never predictable, basic research has been a reliable source of new knowledge that has fueled important developments in fields ranging from telecommunications to medicine, yielding remarkable rates of economic return and ensuring American leadership in industry, military power, and higher education. I believe that continued investment in fundamental research is essential for ensuring healthier lives, better sources of energy, superior military capacity, and high-wage jobs for our nation’s future.

Like McCain, Obama now supports funding for the Constellation program to replace the Space Shuttle. (According to news accounts, in 2007 he briefly advocated delaying the program for five years so that he could have more funds to spend on early childhood education.) Here’s an article in which Obama talks about the space program.

So there you have it. What’s your opinion? Express it below.

Comments

[Mothra]

Obama is clearly the better candidate on science issues.

[Caffeine Driven Stress Magnet]

Obama, by a huge margin. Not just on this question, but in the election.

[Caffeine Driven Stress Magnet]

Obama, by a huge margin. Not just on this question, but in the election.

[Jay Bowers]

I vote for Obama, too.

[Caffeine Driven Stress Magnet]

I am glad to see that we'll finally have a president again who listens to scientists. I really have confidence that the Obama Administration will do something about global warming, protecting the oceans, and other issues that can't wait any longer.

[Astroboy]

NO SENSE IN EVEN COMPARING THEM AT THIS POINT OBAMA IS GOING TO WIN

[Ronald Krause]

I think it's revealing that Obama is advised by Nobel prize winners, while we don't even know who, if anybody, is advising McCain on science at all.

[Joe the Plumber]

Obama wants to raise our taxes to pay for all this.

[Joe the Plumber is a Fraud]

Not unless you make more than $200,000 individually or $250,000 household.

[Shawn Bradley]

I'm much more comfortable with Obama's attitude toward science than I am with McCain's. Also, Obama seems like a leader who actually would listen to his advisors and consider their points carefully. McCain seems like somebody who would disregard scientists' advice and go with his "gut instinct," no matter how ill-informed and wrong it might be.

[Lacey Clarke]

OBAMA is the best candidate on every issue, including science!

[Sharon Hambley]

Apparently, McCain fell asleep in science classes at USNA, unless it was about ZOOMIE subjects.
Grizzly reseach???
Too GRUNT for McCain...
He's too busy being Mr Entitled...
He's mainly interested in his own special topics like what kind of funds he can get...
He also likes "how to decorate models or former beauty queens"
NOTE on 11/7/08 we can all celebrate McCain "Cuddle a Commie" Day from his 1991 hug fest with a VietNamese O4 or O5 level officer from his Hanoi Hilton days---Who pals around with Commies??????
Since he only shows up 40-45% of the time to the Senate, I think he needs to paid on the basis of attendance...
McCain=total loser

[Bender the Robot]

McCain may not know much about science, being that he graduated near the bottom of his class at Annapolis. But he turned out to be really great at crashing planes.

[Anonymous]

Say what you want about his political views.. but stop criticizing McCain on his involvement in the war. Don't reply to this with a smart a** comment like, "It always goes back to the war" because I am clearly talking to the people who comment like the one above me:
"McCain may not know much about science, being that he graduated near the bottom of his class at Annapolis. But he turned out to be really great at crashing planes."

[rocket scientist]

The prestigious scientific journal Nature endorses Barack Obama

Editorial
Nature 455, 1149 (30 October 2008) | doi:10.1038/4551149a; Published online 29 October 2008

America's choice
Top of pageAbstractThe values of scientific enquiry, rather than any particular policy positions on science, suggest a preference for one US presidential candidate over the other.

The election of a US president almost always seems like a crossroads, but the choice to be made on 4 November feels unusual, and daunting, in its national and global significance.

Science and the research enterprise offer powerful tools for addressing key challenges that face America and the world, and it is heartening that both John McCain and Barack Obama have had thoughtful things to say about them. Obama has been more forthcoming in his discussion of research goals (see Nature 455, 446–449; 2008), but both have engaged with the issues. McCain deserves particular credit for taking a stance on carbon emissions that is at odds with that of a significant proportion of his party.

There is no open-and-shut case for preferring one man or the other on the basis of their views on these matters. This is as it should be: for science to be a narrow sectional interest bundled up in a single party would be a terrible thing. Both sides recognize science's inspirational value and ability to help achieve national and global goals. That is common ground to be prized, and a scientific journal's discussion of these matters might be expected to stop right there.

But science is bound by, and committed to, a set of normative values — values that have application to political questions. Placing a disinterested view of the world as it is ahead of our views of how it should be; recognizing that ideas should be tested in as systematic a way as possible; appreciating that there are experts whose views and criticisms need to be taken seriously: these are all attributes of good science that can be usefully applied when making decisions about the world of which science is but a part. Writ larger, the core values of science are those of open debate within a free society that have come down to us from the Enlightenment in many forms, not the least of which is the constitution of the United States.

The core values of science are those of open debate within a free society that have come down to us from the Enlightenment.
On a range of topics, science included, Obama has surrounded himself with a wider and more able cadre of advisers than McCain. This is not a panacea. Some of the policies Obama supports — continued subsidies for corn ethanol, for example — seem misguided. The advice of experts is all the more valuable when it is diverse: 'groupthink' is a problem in any job. Obama seems to understands this. He tends to seek a range of opinions and analyses to ensure that his own opinion, when reached, has been well considered and exposed to alternatives. He also exhibits pragmatism — for example in his proposals for health-care reform — that suggests a keen sense for the tests reality can bring to bear on policy.

Some will find strengths in McCain that they value more highly than the commitment to reasoned assessment that appeals in Obama. But all the signs are that the former seeks a narrower range of advice. Equally worrying is that he fails to educate himself on crucial matters; the attitude he has taken to economic policy over many years is at issue here. Either as a result of poor advice, or of advice inadequately considered, he frequently makes decisions that seem capricious or erratic. The most notable of these is his ill-considered choice of Sarah Palin, the Republican governor of Alaska, as running mate. Palin lacks the experience, and any outward sign of the capacity, to face the rigours of the presidency.

The Oval Office is not a debating chamber, nor is it a faculty club. As anyone in academia will know, a thoughtful and professorial air is not in itself a recommendation for executive power. But a commitment to seeking good advice and taking seriously the findings of disinterested enquiry seems an attractive attribute for a chief executive. It certainly matters more than any specific pledge to fund some particular agency or initiative at a certain level — pledges of a sort now largely rendered moot by the unpredictable flux of the economy.

This journal does not have a vote, and does not claim any particular standing from which to instruct those who do. But if it did, it would cast its vote for Barack Obama.

[skeptic]

stop criticizing McCain on his involvement in the war.
--------------------------------------------

I don't think the person who wrote about McCain crashing planes was criticizing his involvement in the Vietnam war. He or she was referring to McCain's safety record as a pilot, which frankly wasn't very good. It's a well-reported fact that he crashed several planes before he went to Vietnam. Unlike the incident in which he was shot down over Vietnam, the earlier crashes were caused by pilot error. His superiors in the Navy used to call him "Ace" in derision. The question I would ask is why such a poor student was allowed to become a pilot, which is an elite, highly-sought-after position in the Navy, and why he was allowed to continue flying even after all these accidents. I think this raises the question of whether McCain was the beneficiary of nepotism.

[Science]

Mccain couldn't reveal his advisors because he hadn't even thought about them yet, obama is obviously more focused on the advancement of science.